Prize Money Revealed for SEC, Big Ten, More Conferences Making CFB Playoff Bracket

Following Sunday's reveal of the College Football Playoff bracket, multiple conferences are cashing in with a major payday.

Conferences receive $4 million for each team that makes the playoff, and the SEC leads the way with five teams and a $20 million payout. The Big Ten received $12 million with three teams in the field, while the Big 12, ACC, AAC and Sun Belt garnered $4 million each.

Entering Sunday's selection show, many had wondered whether the ACC would be represented in the CFP bracket after Duke upset Virginia to win Saturday's conference championship game in overtime. The Athletic's Matt Baker stated that it would've been a "disastrous" situation for the conference that would've went beyond losing out on the $4 million bonus.

Instead, Miami was included in the 12-team field at No. 10, earning an at-large bid that was originally expected to go to Notre Dame. Had the Fighting Irish been selected for the CFP, the $4 million payout would've gone directly to the university since it is an independent team.

CFP selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said Miami's head-to-head victory over Notre Dame wasn't the sole deciding factor in the final bracket.

"Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungering for," Yurachek said, per ESPN's Mark Schlabach, adding that he encouraged committee members to go back and watch the Notre Dame-Miami game from Labor Day weekend as the committee debated the two teams into Sunday morning. "You look at those two teams on paper, and they are almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, the results against common opponents. But the one metric we had to fall back on, again, was the head-to-head."

The College Football Playoff will kick off on Dec. 19-20 with four first-round games.